Bowling centers have evolved from systems which required the manual setting of ten pins on the lane and manual scoring during game play, to systems which utilize automatic pinsetting devices, such as described in Huck, et al U.S. Pat. No. 2,949,300, and ultimately to systems which utilize automatic bowling scoring systems, such as described in Grosvenor et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,582,071.
Such prior bowling center systems often included a plurality of pairs of bowling lanes, with each lane including an automatic pinsetter. The automatic pinsetter was operable to automatically control pinsetter cycles within a bowling game. Particularly, under automatic control, the pinsetter at the beginning of each frame would set ten pins on the deck. The player would be permitted to roll a maximum of two balls to knock down all of the pins. The frame ended after all of the pins were knocked down or after two balls were thrown, whichever occurred first. The game consisted of ten such frames.
Prior automatic score consoles were coupled to both pinsetters in the lane pair for automatically processing pin fall information for the two lanes and displaying bowler's scores on score console monitors and on overhead CRT displays. Suitable interconnections were provided between the score console and pinsetter so that pin fall information could be transmitted from sensing devices associated with the pinsetter to the scoring console.
In order for such prior automatic pinsetters to be utilized in a practice bowling mode, a selective pinsetting control mechanism, such as described in Rogers, U.S. Pat. No. 3,219,345, permitted a bowler to manually select which pins would be set on the deck for practice bowling. With such a mechanism, the bowler could selectively play a single ball, or two balls, in order to try and knock down all of the selected pins. Such a mechanism is operable to set a selected array of pins only responsive to a manual request from the bowler.
Certain known automatic pinsetters include hard wired control circuits designed to implement the operation of the conventional ten pin bowling game, or provide for practice bowling. These control circuits are not operable to selectively set different arrays of pins during the playing of a bowling game. Therefore, such automatic pinsetters are limited in their ability to provide variation in the method of operation of a particular bowling game.
Prior bowling center systems also included a manager's control console in electrical communication with the score consoles. The primary function of the manager's control console was to provide administrative control over the operation of the automatic pinsetters and the score consoles. For example, the prior manager's control console was utilized to provide lane status report information, to upload the video score display from any score console and to provide score correction for a particular score console. Such score correction necessitated that bowling at the particular lane be halted until the score correction was complete and sent back to the score console. The manager's control console also included provision for displaying messages at a preselected score console, to transfer lane scoring information from one score console to another, and provide for tournament display as by displaying a pair of lane scores on any selected number of overhead CRT's throughout the system. Additionally, the manager's score console provided for activity and error logging related to system operation.